And the bigger the difference between the two ages, the higher your risk of dying of cancer.
“This could become a new early warning sign of cancer,” said senior author Dr. Lifang Hou, who led the study. “The discrepancy between the two ages appears to be a promising tool that could be used to develop an early detection blood test for cancer.”
Hou is chief of cancer epidemiology and prevention in preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and co-leader of the cancer prevention program at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
“People who are healthy have a very small difference between their epigenetic/biological age and chronological age,” Hou said. “People who develop cancer have a large difference and people who die from cancer have a difference even larger than that. Our evidence showed a clear trend.”
Dr Hou’s research focused on blood values to determine the biological age. With the Fit Fun & Fabulous Program we focus on biological indicators as defined by Tufts University. These indicators help us determine your biological markers for heart health, muscle strength, body fat percentage and waist to hip ratio. We then average these ages to determine your overall biological age. The exciting thing about biological age is it can and should be younger than your chronological age and it’s within YOUR control!
Dr Hou found that for each one-year increase in the discrepancy between chronological and biological ages, there was a 6 percent increased risk of getting cancer within three years and a 17 percent increased risk of cancer death within five years. Those who will develop cancer have an epigenetic age about six months older than their chronological age; those who will die of cancer are about 2.2 years older, the study found.
“Our results suggest future researchers should focus on the epigenetic-chronological age discrepancy for its potential to show a big picture snapshot of human health and disease at a molecular level,” said first author Yinan Zheng, a predoctoral fellow at Feinberg.
To determine your Biological Age based on Tufts University Indicators schedule your appointment at our office by calling 724-295-2100 to begin your path to a younger biological age purchase your starter kit here.
Call 724-295-2100 to schedule your appointment.
The above post is reprinted from materials provided by Northwestern University. The original item was written by Marla Paul. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Journal Reference:
- Yinan Zheng, Brian T. Joyce, Elena Colicino, Lei Liu, Wei Zhang, Qi Dai, Martha J. Shrubsole, Warren A. Kibbe, Tao Gao, Zhou Zhang, Nadereh Jafari, Pantel Vokonas, Joel Schwartz, Andrea A. Baccarelli, Lifang Hou.Blood Epigenetic Age may Predict Cancer Incidence and Mortality.EBioMedicine, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2016.02.008
